


we are kinder in the sunlight

by iphigenias



Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Canon Era, Fic for Victory 2k16, M/M, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-01
Updated: 2016-09-01
Packaged: 2018-08-12 07:06:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7925299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iphigenias/pseuds/iphigenias
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times Gene couldn't save someone, and the one time he did.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we are kinder in the sunlight

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rossignol](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rossignol/gifts).



> happy v-j day my dudes!! this is my ficforvictory2k16 gift for sarah!! her original prompt: _some 5+1 type thing, can be angsty (5 times someone managed to escape death, and one time they didn't) or fluffy (5 times babe tried and failed to get Roe's attention and 1 time he succeeded)._ this is probably nothing like what you wanted and i’m so sorry for that but this story just really wanted to be told
> 
> as usual, this is based upon the hbo portrayals of easy company and no disrespect is intended towards the real guys. title is from one of [maddie's amazing poems](http://skywllker.tumblr.com/post/144619201433/wait-for-june-madeline-c) which you should all check out right now

**one.**

 

It’s a wet, hot summer like all Bayou Chene summers are. Gene’s t-shirt sticks to the sweat on his chest and the way his ribs stick out of the fabric make it look as though he’s wearing his skeleton outside of his skin. Maw-Maw is always telling him to get more meat on his bones, but Gene’s not dumb and he knows what depression means. It’s saving the scraps of potato peels and fat cut from meat to stretch into another meal. It’s putting his pocket money in the family savings jar when Ma’s not looking, and pretending he spent it on his way home from school. It’s ribs sticking out beneath a thin white t-shirt because between the four of them, Ma and Da and Maw-Maw and Gene, he’s the one who needs the least.

And it’s being turned away from the doc’s because even with all the money they’d scraped together, it still wasn’t enough for the medicine.

Gene cycles back home along the quiet dirt road that backs up into the swamp. The coins are heavy in his pocket. He tries to hate the doc, hate the man who told him no, but Gene knows better than most the cost of healing someone. It makes him want to rip the depression from people’s hearts and go back to the way he remembers his childhood was like: warm, yellow, free. Except it’s getting harder to remember these days.

Gene jerks the pedals on his bike and dumps it at the front steps, taking them two at a time. Maw-Maw’s right where he left her, slumped against the pillows in his parents’ rickety double bed. There’s a handful of bloody tissues on the side table and Gene tries not to look at how wet and fresh the blood is. His ma follows him in from the kitchen.

“Did you get it?” she asks, eyes shining, but Gene’s empty hands give her an answer before he can find the words. She leans heavily against the doorframe, pressing a hand over her eyes like she’s trying to push them out backwards. Maw-Maw rustles the sheets and Gene turns back to her. There’s spit on the corners of her lips but she’s smiling, soft and sad, that familiar smile Gene remembers from when he was little and she’d told him that Paw-Paw was gone and he wasn’t coming back.

“’s okay, _cher_ ,” she says, reaching out and taking his chin in her crabbed hand. “’s my time.”

“But it ain’t fair,” Gene says, and his voice catches on the last word. Maw-Maw gives his chin a squeeze and then lets go, dropping her hand back down on the sheets.

“Nothin’ is, _cher_. ’s not fair, but it’s okay.” She smiles again, and this time it isn’t sad at all. “I know you’re gonna grow up to be a strong, brave boy and I’m jus’ sad I won’ be here to see it. But you gotta be there for your momma, alrigh’?” Gene nods stiffly, afraid of the tears that have welled up in his eyes. “Alrigh’,” Maw-Maw says again, almost a sigh this time, and lets her eyes flutter closed. Gene’s ma comes up behind him and wraps her arms around her son, squeezing him tight. The smell of her perfume is overwhelming.

“I got you,” she says, rocking Gene back and forth like he’s a kid again. “I got you, baby.” And it’s only then, when Maw-Maw’s gone and Ma can’t see his face, that Gene lets himself cry.

 

**two.**

 

“Ma?” Gene lets himself into the house with his old key, letting the door swing shut behind him. It’s cloudy and grey outside but the lights are off in the hallway, and when Gene checks the kitchen, it’s dark in there too. “Ma?” he says again, finding her lying down in the bed his maw-maw died in. She isn’t moving, and Gene’s throat seizes up, but when he reaches out he can feel the gentle rise and fall of her breath. He sighs in relief, sitting down on the edge of the mattress. “I signed up today, Ma,” he says, and she doesn’t answer. Gene presses his lips together. “I joined the paratroopers. ’s an extra fifty bucks a month. I’ll send as much as I can back here.” Ma still says nothing, just curls her hands into tighter fists against the covers. “I’ll come over again before I leave, okay? And I’ll bring some o’ that peach cobbler from Maisie’s you like.”

Gene gets to his feet and wipes his hands against his coveralls. He’s almost at the door when she finally speaks. “Don’ go,” she says, her voice small. “Not you too.”

Gene presses a hand over his mouth and swallows down a choked sob. He takes a deep breath and looks back over his shoulder at the lump that’s Ma. “I have to,” he says, and watches as she rolls over so she can’t see him anymore. Gene leaves, and when he comes back two weeks later, Ma doesn’t say anything at all.

 

**three.**

 

The first dead body Gene sees is a German. He trips over him in the dark after landing who knows how far from the DZ, and when he crouches down to get a closer look, he sees that the soldier is a teenager. Twenty, at most. The blonde of his hair is caked with blood and when Gene pushes it back, the top of his skull separates from the rest of his head. Gene jumps to his feet and almost pukes his guts out then and there. He’s a combat medic, he should be unaffected by sights like these—but the man’s brains are spilling out onto the grass and Gene can hear the faint sound of gunfire in the distance and the dead body at his feet is a kid, and no-one told him war would be like this.

Gene swallows down his revulsion and turns to leave, but the body reels him back in. Gene kneels down in the wet grass—wet with what, he doesn’t want to know—and quickly peels the jacket from the soldier, placing it over the two halves of his head and making the cross with a hand that’s covered in blood. Gene knows he should be moving, knows he’s vulnerable out in the open like this—hell, given what happened to this soldier he should’ve run as far away from this field as possible—and he knows the Krauts are the bad guys. But Gene also knows what it’s like to be human, and remembers his maw-maw helping as many people as she could even when it began to kill her, and knows that he couldn’t live with himself if he’d walked away and done nothing.

So Gene covers the dead boy’s face, prays for him in the middle of a bloody field in a night lit up by screams and stars, and rifles through the German’s supplies because he may be human, but he isn’t stupid. Gene leaves the boy lying dead in the grass and makes for the cover of the trees, wondering if the army lied to him when they took his gun and called him medic, if they should’ve called him gravedigger instead.

 

**four.**

The worst thing about war is that it isn’t only soldiers paying the price. They try their best, they really do, but when civilians are caught in the crossfire it’s unavoidable. Inevitable. Gene’s learned to accept that. He just wishes it wasn’t Renee this time.

There’s no body, and if there is, it’s buried under tonnes of dirt and stone. Gene’s glad of it. He doesn’t know what he’d do if he saw her. Renee was an escape from the war, somehow separate in Gene’s mind from the fighting and the death going on all around them. He knows it’s selfish, that he had a refuge in Bastogne while the rest of the men either lay bleeding in the aid station or freezing in their foxholes, but it was something he wouldn’t have traded for the world. Maybe that makes him a bad person. Maybe standing here in the bombed out church with Renee’s scarf clutched in his white-knuckled hand is his punishment for praying for peace. God is righteous. Gene knows this. _Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword._ Gene clutches Renee’s scarf in his hand, and thinks that in His righteous fury, God has torn the world apart.

When he returns to the line it’s to find Babe sitting alone. Gene isn’t good with words at the best of times, and now it’s as though his voice has been sucked dry, shucked like an oyster from the shell. If only he’d been on that patrol with Julian. Maybe he would’ve saved him. And if only he’d gone to the aid station sooner, maybe he would’ve saved her.

When Gene pulls out Renee’s scarf to bandage Babe’s hand, something inside of him freezes. This is all he has left of her. He can’t waste it on an injury that isn’t even that bad. But then—this is Edward, this is Babe, and Gene’s never been friends with any of the men like the rest of Easy are, because he’s a medic and he was told that in order to save someone’s life, he couldn’t be a part of it. And Gene understands that now. He understands it in the way that Renee’s death feels like someone has scooped out his heart from between his ribs and let it bleed into the snow. He understands it in the way that his hands are trembling just looking at her scarf and remembering every stolen piece of time he spent with her, like scenes from someone else’s life. But Gene also knows that out here in the cold, the only thing they have is each other, and even if each death feels like a raw and open wound on Gene’s skin, it’s worth it for the memories he has of them. Of Julian, laughing like a little kid. Of Renee, smiling and handing him the chocolate. Gene looks at the scarf and looks at Babe and thinks that life is mapped out in moments like these. He remembers his maw-maw dying from the depression, and his ma living with a different kind of depression, and he knows the cost of holding onto something when it should’ve been let go a long time ago.

Gene rips the scarf in half and takes Babe’s hand gently in his own. He remembers Renee’s hands and how she looked at them like she didn’t understand, and he remembers his maw-maw’s hands and the way they were crabbed over from old age and caring too much. Gene wraps up Babe’s hand and thinks that love stories are overrated. It’s war that matters the most. War, and what it does to you.

War, and how your heart learns to carry it.

 

**five.**

After Bastogne, Gene thought the worst of it was over. That digging through the foxhole where Muck and Penkala had been blown to pieces to try and find any piece of them he could send back home to their mothers was the war at its most brutal. But there are snipers in Foy, and Gene can’t forgive himself for not thinking of the possibility. And there are mortars in Haguenau too, and the sense of helplessness they leave Gene with is incurable. He should know. He is a medic, after all.

It’s Jackson that cuts the deepest. Gene watches the patrol row across the river, and tries not to think about Babe and the others walking straight into enemy territory. He makes his way back to barracks when he can’t see them anymore, because waiting out there in the dark, alone, is something he’s not brave enough to do.

He gets the call for medic soon enough. Martin comes running and Gene follows, reckless in the dark. Jackson is screaming when he gets there, and his face is half burned off, and Gene remembers with sudden clarity the German soldier with his head torn in two. His hand shakes as he checks Jackson out with the flashlight, and the kid is spitting blood into Gene’s eyes, and he’s shaking more than he’s supposed to and Gene just knows. He does everything he can, but he knows.

When Jackson goes still under his hands, Gene rocks back heavily on his heels. He takes off his helmet and stares at the body of a teenager, a child killed not by a Kraut but by his own grenade. Gene thinks about Hoobler, and thinks about how he couldn’t save him either. He looks at Jackson and sees Renee, sees his ma, sees Maw-Maw. This is war, and Gene knows this, but somehow it feels as though death is following him around. Gene reaches forward to close what’s left of Jackson’s eyes. The whispers of the men around him are white noise, and when Gene looks up it’s to find Babe already looking at him, looking _for_ him. He excuses himself from the room and when he leans against the wall outside, he’s not alone.

“You did what you could,” Babe tells him, and Gene laughs.

“I always do,” he says, looking up at the sky and wondering where the next mortar will fall. “’Cept it never really works out.” He reaches for a cigarette but his hands are shaking so much he can’t light it. Babe reaches over and cups his own hand around it, striking the match for Gene. He breathes out a puff of nervous smoke.

“None of this is your fault,” is what Babe says next, and the words twist around inside Gene like snakes. “You know that, right? It’s—it’s fuckin’ Hitler, man.”

Gene snorts. “Fuckin’ Hitler, huh.” From the room he left Jackson in, he can hear someone crying. He offers his cigarette to Babe, who takes a long drag before handing it back. Gene watches his fingers under the moonlight and wonders what circle of hell he’ll be going to for wanting to kiss them.

After a while, the rest of the guys start to filter out of the room. Johnny gives Gene a rough pat on the back, but most of the rest of them avoid his gaze. The new boy, Jones, looks like he wants to say something, but Gene turns away before he can.

“You should catch some shut-eye,” he tells Babe, crushing the Lucky Strike under his boot. “While you still can.”

Babe rolls his eyes. “Oh, yeah? And I guess you’ll be staying up the rest of the night?”

Gene feels himself blush, and is grateful for the darkness. “Shuddup. I gotta check on the men.”

“Gene.” Babe reaches out, catches his fingers around Gene’s wrist. He pauses, and it feels as though he’s a spinning top come to a halt. “Even medics need to rest. You’ve done enough tonight.” Gene thinks about Jackson, and can’t find it in himself agree.

“Okay,” he lies, and when Babe smiles at him in reply, Gene hates the war for what it’s done to them both.

 

**\+ one.**

There’s a knock at the door. Gene’s in the middle of washing the dishes, so he wipes his soapy hands on the tea towel and drapes it over one shoulder before going to answer it. “Oh,” he says, when he opens the door, and forgets what else to say. Babe is on his doormat. Babe is on his doormat and is rubbing the back of his neck uncomfortably with cheeks turned bright red.

“Hey, Gene,” he says, not meeting his eyes. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell ya I was coming, but I mean—I didn’t really know either. I just kind of—left.” He looks up and Gene still doesn’t know what to say. He steps back to let Babe inside without a word. 

“Sorry, I was just—” he pauses, making an abortive motion with his hands. “Dishes.”

Babe brightens. “Need any help?” He follows Gene into the kitchen and looks around the room, smiling softly at the pale yellow curtains with the white trim Gene has tied up on either side of the long window above the sink. Gene looks away.

“You can dry, if you want,” he says, tossing Babe the tea towel, and plunges his hands back into the soapy water that’s now uncomfortably lukewarm. Babe happily takes each dripping dish he hands him, drying them with an ease borne out of practice and stacking them on the counter beside him. The whole thing is heartachingly domestic, and Gene has to bite his tongue to stop himself from saying anything stupid.

They finish up and Gene tells Babe where the plates and the mugs go. Babe stops to look at the photos pinned on the fridge with magnets. “That your ma?” he asks, nodding at the photo of Gene and Ma dancing together and caught mid-laugh, eyes bright and mouths open. Gene remembers when it was taken. It was his eleventh birthday and Ma had been showing him the jive. Da had been smiling behind the camera and every time he caught Ma’s eye she practically glowed with happiness in a way Gene misses like a limb. Maw-Maw had gotten sick right after.

“Yeah,” Gene says belatedly, sidling up beside Babe to stare at the photos on the fridge. “And that’s Da, and there’s Maw-Maw and Paw-Paw before I was born.” Babe studies the photo.

“Your—maw-maw,” he says carefully, and Gene hides his smile against his hand. “She was a—a traitor?”

“ _Traiteuse_ ,” Gene corrects with a laugh, staring at the image of his maw-maw younger than he had ever known her, wishing he could pull her from the frame and ask her how his heart became so stupid as to fall in love with the boy standing next to him. Babe looks thoughtfully at the photo and then turns to face Gene.

“Are you one?”

“What?” Gene turns in confusion and his breath catches in his throat as he realises how close he and Babe are standing right now, almost chest to chest. In a foxhole in Bastogne such proximity hardly meant a thing, but here in Gene’s big open kitchen the space around them seems squished together and stretched out all at once, and Gene can count the freckles on Babe’s cheeks and see the sunburn peeling on the tip of his nose.

“Are you a _traiteuse_ too?” Babe asks, stumbling over the word. Gene huffs out a laugh and takes a step back, heart hammering against his ribcage in a way he hasn’t felt since the war.

“No,” he says, smiling. “Ain’t nothin’ special about what I do.”

Babe makes a considering noise in the back of his throat and Gene can’t help but look at him again. “I dunno,” he says, voice suddenly serious and blue eyes fixed right on Gene, who can’t breathe. “You seem pretty special to me.” Gene makes a disbelieving noise without meaning to, and it makes Babe frown. He reaches out and grabs Gene’s hand, still wet and soapy from the dishwater, and laces their fingers together. “You saved me, Gene,” Babe says simply, and when he kisses him, Gene feels it right through his bones.


End file.
